Thailand Trip Cost from India: What Four Trips Actually Cost Us (in INR)

Four trips to Thailand in nineteen months, and every one of them started the same way: one of us opening a flight app on a Bangalore weeknight and saying "look at this fare." Sometimes the fare was real. Once, at Christmas, it wasn't, and we went anyway.

This isn't a "Thailand on ₹50,000" page. It's what we actually paid, pulled from our booking receipts, for two people across four trips: December 2024, August 2025, November 2025 and June 2026. Some of it was cheap. Some of it was a mistake. The difference between the two was mostly the calendar, not anything we booked.

The short answer

Trip	Nights	Flights	Stays	Transfers	Booked total (for two)
Dec 2024 — Phuket, Phi Phi, Koh Lanta, Ao Nang	8	₹98,396	₹73,145	₹13,155	₹1.90 lakh
Aug 2025 — Ao Nang, Koh Samui	8	₹27,610	₹71,652	₹9,988	₹1.09 lakh
Nov–Dec 2025 — Ao Nang, Koh Lanta, Phuket	11	₹43,760	₹80,036	₹9,093	₹1.33 lakh
Jun–Jul 2026 — Koh Samui, Koh Phangan, Phuket	9	₹81,292	₹65,110	₹15,260	₹1.62 lakh

Add roughly ₹3,500–4,200 a day for two for food and a scooter (breakdown further down), and a full trip lands at about ₹70,000 to ₹1.1 lakh per person, depending almost entirely on when you go. December 2024 also included a ₹5,528 four-island day trip for the two of us.

The longest trip was the cheapest per night. That's the whole argument of this blog in one table.

Flights: the only number that really swings

Our most expensive flights and our cheapest were eight months apart, on almost the same route.

December 2024. IndiGo Bangalore to Phuket, booked five weeks out, landing two days before Christmas: ₹58,024 for the two of us, one way. The return to Bangalore was another ₹40,372. Roughly ₹49,000 each just to get there and back. Nothing about the trip was worth that premium. Late December is simply when everyone else flies.

August 2025. IndiGo direct, Bangalore to Krabi and back, booked about two weeks out: ₹27,610 return for both of us. ₹13,800 each, in the middle of the low season. The rain we were warned about showed up for an hour on some afternoons and not at all on others.

November 2025. In on IndiGo to Krabi, out on Akasa from Phuket: ₹43,760 for two, booked a week before we left.

June 2026. Akasa to Phuket, a Bangkok Airways hop across to Samui, Akasa home: ₹81,292 for two. We paid most of that in card reward points, so the cash we actually spent was about ₹24,400. If you're not sitting on points, budget the full fare. The Phuket–Samui leg alone was ₹25,090 for two, for a 55-minute flight.

What we'd tell anyone flying out of Bangalore:

• Krabi is the cheaper door when IndiGo's direct flight is running. Phuket has more flights, but they don't get cheap in the same way.
• Avoid 20 December to 5 January unless your dates are fixed by someone else.
• Inter-island flights are almost never worth it. The ferry-and-bus combinations below do the same job for a fraction of the price.

Where we stayed, and what it cost per night

Across all four trips we averaged ₹7,200–9,100 a night for two. The spread underneath that average is the useful part.

Chalaroste, Koh Lanta (Nov 2025). A pool-view villa with breakfast, ₹36,783 for seven nights on Agoda, about ₹5,250 a night. We liked it enough to stay an extra night and push our ferry back. It's the reason the November trip is the cheapest per night despite being the longest. Our full Chalaroste review.

Lamai Inn 99, Koh Samui. ₹17,138 for two nights in a garden room in August 2025. We went back in June 2026 and paid ₹36,391 for five nights in a sea-view room, about ₹7,300 a night with no road between us and the water. Why Lamai keeps winning.

Shanti Boutique, Srithanu, Koh Phangan (Jun 2026). ₹24,819 for three nights with a sea-view balcony.

Baan Suwantawe, Phuket Old Town. Twice, one night each, for ₹4,322 and ₹3,900. The cheapest good room we've had in Phuket, and the only part of Phuket we'd go back for. Is Phuket worth visiting?

Sea Seeker, Ao Nang (Aug 2025). ₹6,518 for two nights booked through our bank's travel portal, then about ₹9,800 for two more nights booked directly with the hotel. Booking direct cost us more, not less.

And the ones we'd skip:

• Bandara, Bophut (Aug 2025) — ₹38,149 for two nights. About ₹19,000 a night, the most we paid anywhere, for the beach we liked least.
• Novotel Kamala, Phuket (Nov 2025) — ₹32,570 for two nights in an ocean room, a long way from anything ordinary.
• Ibis Styles Ao Nang (Dec 2024) — ₹24,454 for two nights, because it was Christmas week. The same hotel was showing at around ₹9,900 a night the following November.

Getting between islands

We book almost all of it on 12Go, and the prices have been remarkably stable across trips:

Route	For two
Ao Nang → Koh Samui (van + ferry)	฿1,808
Koh Samui → Ao Nang (van + ferry)	฿1,891
Ao Nang → Koh Lanta (van)	฿1,066
Koh Lanta → Phuket (ferry)	฿1,766
Ao Nang → Phuket (ferry)	฿1,883
Phuket → Phi Phi → Koh Lanta (two boats)	฿3,400
Koh Samui → Koh Phangan (Seatran)	about ₹3,500
Koh Phangan → Phuket (Lomprayah boat + bus)	about ₹8,200

The Phangan to Phuket run is a full day: catamaran, Surat Thani, then four and a half hours of bus. Every connection held. Grab rides in Phuket ran ฿190–565 each.

On the ground: food and scooters

These we didn't keep receipts for, so treat them as our honest estimate rather than a ledger.

• Scooter: ฿250–300 a day. You'll need an International Driving Permit.
• Meals: ฿250–300 per person at a sit-down place. Night markets come in well under that.

That works out to roughly ฿1,300–1,500 a day for two (₹3,500–4,200) if you eat out twice and keep a scooter. Chalaroste included breakfast, which mattered more than we expected across eight days.

What we'd do with the same money next time

Go between August and November. Fly into Krabi if the direct flight is running. Pick one island and give it a week instead of giving three islands two nights each — the November trip, with eight nights at Chalaroste, was both the cheapest per night and the one we enjoyed most. Treat Phuket as an airport plus one night in the Old Town. And check the dates before you fall for the fare: the same route cost us four times as much at Christmas as it did in August.

Visa-wise, all four of our trips were on the old 60-day exemption. From 15 September 2026 it's 30 days visa-free for Indians — plenty for trips like these, but here's what changed if you're planning longer. For the why rather than the how much, this is what four trips taught us. If you're starting with Krabi, the Ao Nang guide and Koh Lanta for remote work cover the ground.

Costs are what we paid for two adults, taken from booking confirmations. Baht amounts are converted at the approximate rate at the time of each trip (₹2.5–2.8 per baht).